grendel

I wouldnt dare buy any scales that measured in tons - new or old that would be asking for trouble.

Strangely enough Griff, that is how I have made the model, except my teak is plywood. I have now inserted a couple of slips of wood behind the protruding ends of the stringers / ribs, which will hopefully give me something to clamp to for the front of the planks. The measurements have been taken, and now need to be divided by 12 to divine the width of the planks, the plank lines will then be marked onto the ribs.

I think the vac forming is a good idea, but not quite practical for this particular build, I will approach this with a draughtsmans approach to things and carefully measure and work from there, by marking the plank lines onto the ribs, I can then lay a plank on in best fit and mark the edges straight to the plank (more akin to the old timers matchbox method) then I will at least know the plank will be lying straight, once I have the planks shaped I can restart fitting them, tonight I will prepare the extra bits to allow clamping at the front of the planks. more and pictures later.

Vaughan, many thanks for that, it always helps to see the boats in bare bones form, this helps me visualise how things go together, particularly how the prow / stem is shaped, Broad Ambition has more ribs closer spaced than the Hearts cruiser above, which gives more for the planks to be formed to and fixed to, I am lucky in as much as I can fit planks that are the full length of the boat, so dont have to scarf them, but I do need to work out the tapers on the planks to help things fit properly. I had planned on building up to / past a front bulkhead where the stem would be, then cutting carefully before fitting the rough stem, then shaping that to the planking, as I know that Griff and Co did replace the stem. As I am making 2 models I am using the first to test different methods and processes so that the second hull proceeds more smoothly, until I had fashioned the first I wasnt able to envisage the shape of the rebates needed in the stem, (at least until I saw your picture above) and was afraid to manufacture this part before I knew the shape it had to take. as for interesting curves, I have already seen some of those, the twist on the first plank is nearly 90 degrees at the front. and thats without having them bend around the curve of the hull as well as a bend through the width of the plank. I now appreciate the skills of those old craftsmen who built a lot of these boats by eye, and the planning necessary before laying the planks, just to get the shapes right. this weekend will be spent marking out the widths and positions of each plank for both sides before a single plank is shaped, then planks will be laid along their route and only then can I decide which side of the plank the excess will be trimmed from for a proper fit. Once I have this hull done I may be able to take measurements to be able to create the stem for the next one with the proper rebates before I lay up the keel. (though I am still not sure how I will clamp the front in that case). Just one question is that a double rebate on the stem, one for the stringers, then a deeper one for the ribs?, though I see your stringers run outside the ribs, or are those the horizontal formers that are removed as the planking gets to that height, she certainly does seem simpler to build that Broad Ambition.

Come on Grace, you will wear more than 10 out on the dartboard.......

I have decided to add an additional section of framing in front of the cutoff for the prow, this will be fashioned to give me a surface at the correct angle to clamp the planks in place at the bow. up until now I have had no problems steaming pieces to shape, even with quite tight bends without cutting the backs, you do have to remember you are not stretching the outside face of the curve, but compressing the back face when steaming, ideally you have a steel band at the same length as the outside of the curve to stop any stretching- this should stop any splitting, but truth be told thats a bit impractical at this size. to be honest this curve isnt too bad, but its almost at the limits of what unsteamed wood will manage, so I will be steaming the next ones to get the curve a bit better. As it is if you dampen the planks at the end they bend easier. I think my big issue has been with the clamping at such an acute angle, its difficult to get the planks to hold without the clamps slipping. Paul, I would love to see any pictures of your current build that you wish to post

I will also try out Tims idea of staring from the front - so far I have started at the back.

Zimbil, since I will be sanding the planks after I dont really want to score them, I do have a steam bending rig, but the main thing is figuring how to clamp at the front, though I am thinking of screwing a sacrificial block to the front of the first bulkhead, then screwing the front end of the plank to that- forrard of where it will eventually be cut back to.

right I have dampened the planks again, and clamped them with a strong spring clamp with more glue, and we will see where that gets us tomorrow

Time to pause and take stock - Huston we have a problem - the planks are not pulling in tight enough at the front, I have underestimated the amount the wood will bend without steam. While I am pondering the solution, I have dry fitted the top plank, the one at deck level and made a measure, at the back we have 149mm, in the middle at the widest point, 187mm and at the bow 164mm I make this 12 and a bit planks (the current ones are 15mm wide) so thats 12.4mm at the stern, 15mm in the middle and 13.7mm at the front. with a 7mm spoiler plank in the middle(this is approximately, I will be going through this in more detail to get an exact shape, I think I may have to steam the front ends of those planks to get them to shape properly, I think part of the problem is with the difficulty in clamping there. looking where the deck plank curves naturally, this pretty much matches the photos above. anyway back to looking at the planks at the front to see what can be done.

or a bottle of Gin and some glasses on a table?

I have not been keeping track of the hours as such, anything from 15 to 30 minutes most days, with sometimes an extra hour or two thrown in at the weekends, the longest part as ever is glue drying time, as I dont take chances of unclamping before the glue has had at least 23 hours to set properly and achieve full strength. So far my calculations work out at maybe 35-40 hours so far over the 3 months I have been working on the model. ( to be honest I cant really proceed much faster due to the glue setting times) The real work will come when I start doing the detail work, things like shaping stainless steel plates for detailing- such as the plate shown under the fairlead below, and fittings such as the cleat shown just above it, its these details that make a model come to life. as for costs I have been keeping a book detailing the costs, timber costs have been kept low as I have been ripping my own planks and timbers from bigger decent timbers I already have, though I did purchase a big block of oak for the Prows, but even that was not hugely expensive, the expensive bits are prop shafts rudders, motors propellors etc, even the Radio control gear is relatively inexpensive nowadays. I have already converted a wardrobe door to timber as well as some oak drawer fronts I have to hand, the wardrobe timber will go towards the cabin sides as it is a deep reddish colour as can be seen by the piece test fitted round the transom at one point - quite a good match to the real thing. I have been looking at some of the photos I have grabbed from Griffs previous restoration threads, and see that the planking rises sharply at the bow, this weekend I will be taking some time to plan the remaining planking as some planks will need tapering towards the ends. These photos show invaluable details for the model build as I can see the bare bones features of Broad Ambition, which allow me to copy them. I may have to introduce some spoilers to fill gaps (these are shorter planks that taper to a point to fill gaps) and I will probably go to a narrower plank as I round the sharp curve of the hull as we transition from the side to the bottom of the hull.

Griff, you must be reading my mind, I have some narrower planks set aside for that part, depending on how things go on this one will dictate the plank widths I use on the second one. I also have some darker hardwood set aside for the stern planking. I had already seen the two layers of planking on the transom, and had planned to copy that, as it allows the dressing planking to be thinner, and thus easier to bend to the transom.

Timbo, are you going hunting wabbits

be careful with leather needles, as they are designed to make a cut through the leather, so rather than piercing a hole through the weave of the fabric, they cut through threads, the ones I had cut on a diagonal.

just wait until they get bread banned from sale to stop it being fed to ducks - good job I can bake my own.

Richard - yes it will go on the water, with radio control, models of the crew - well it will have a crew, whether they will look like Griff and Robin will depend upon my skill at modelling the figures. Anyway tonight another plank in place, and another shaping. I also tried a new method of clamping at the front, I made up some wedges to help the clamps stop slipping.

Yes the prow will be the same as the real thing, a large piece of oak, shaped to fit. that doesn't mean I am not struggling with the planking at the bow. I think I need to work out a better way of clamping the planks up the front end.

The planking needs to be done while its still on the building board, so the second cant be started until the first has moved off the slipway so to speak, or I would have to have a second building board to frame up the second model. #2 should be under way before christmas, especially as I have 3 day weekends from now until then to get my annual leave all used up before I lose it.

you will also see me struggling to clamp the planks at the front, and making a handling mistake and breaking one of the ribs, this will be fixed once I can turn the model over and get inside the hull.

tonight I have done a video, its quite long, so you will see planking is not as quick as ribs are, but I will still try and do one per evening.

Right, new power supply so back on my old laptop, I got a 90W supply (old one was 65W) its still warm, but only normal power supply temperature. on to the boat, second plank installed today, (first on the second side) each plank needs a slight angle on the edge to fit properly.

thats obvious MM- Next door to the B&B.

You are getting a bumper update today, I have just made another little video clip to show the progress.

Lazy Sunday, so a bit more work on the model this evening, a milestone has been achieved, first plank is gluing. first it was damped and dry fitted into place, given a few hours to dry into shape, then the important step, shaving a slight angle onto the edge , as we get nearer the front the angle gets steeper, until right at the front the edge of the plank is wafer thin, then glue up - using gorilla pva glue as we don't want the foaming stuff here - if there are gaps with that it is not too strong, the pva will fill the gap, with a stronger bond. it will be sealed inside and out so no worries about water softening it. This plank alongside of the hog is the one with the biggest twist. tomorrow we will spin the model so I can do the first plank on the other side, and then the next one for this side will be dry fitted with a spray of water to get the bends in.